Modern vehicles, especially automobiles, increasingly use systems and sensors for detecting and gathering information about the vehicle's location. Autonomous vehicles can use such information for performing autonomous, partially autonomous, and driver assistance driving operations. Many autonomous, semi-autonomous, and driver assistance driving actions rely on cooperation from a multitude of sensors including cameras, LiDAR, and ultrasonic sensing, among others. A scanning LiDAR mounted on a vehicle can be used for obtaining object detection and ranging. In some scanning LiDAR systems, a scanning pattern of the LiDAR system can have fixed angles relative to the vehicle. Fixed angle scanning patterns can work well when the orientation of the vehicle remains constant with respect to the road, but may provide reduced performance when the angle of the vehicle relative to the road changes (e.g., at a dip, bump, cresting a hill, etc.). Accordingly, a LiDAR system that can provide variable angle scanning patterns can provide improved performance.